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Metaplot Summary
Bete Noire has a very involved ongoing metaplot. Events will be summarized here as much as possible. Metaplot Arc 1 (Nov. 2009 - July 2010) First, Bete Noire. The City of Sin is one of three cities of power: Sin, Life (Babylon) and Death (Yellow Springs). These three cities, together, create the multiverse and bind it together, in a deeply mystical and thematic way. Bete Noire's origin was of Enoch, the city built by Cain for his sons, and the lineage of Bete Noire's Magistrate has been down through the line of Cain through all of that time. The Magistrate Magistrates tended to be extremely short-lived. Not because they were particularly prone to being assassinated -- the city's magical protection ensured that they were almost entirely immune to violence -- but that the position of Magistrate was such acute torture that they tried to pass down the job as quickly as possible. The job meant an intimate psychic connection with the city itself, the 'voices'; any Magistrate constantly hears those voices, awake or asleep, and it's more than enough to drive an ordinary mortal insane. The average Magistrate, therefore, only lasted long enough to have a son and pass down the city to him on his 18th birthday, the day he would become old enough to take the position. And that brings us to The Magistrate. The Magistrate's name was Samuel David; born in the early 19th century in the antebellum South, David was raised as the son of a city merchant with pretensions of upper-class aristocracy. He believed that he would inherit the family business until the age of 18, in 1843, when he was unexpectedly fetched by a dark-clothed man who told him he had a destiny in the City of Sin. David's biological father, a fairly typical if perhaps excessively opium-addled Magistrate, did the ritual immediately, and gave David the city. David, at first, followed the usual pattern. He turned to drugs, alcohol, sex, indulgence of every kind in order to block out the voices. He had a son, and counted the days until he could give the city away. Wondering, hopelessly, if he could perhaps return someday and take over his adopted father's business. One day, when his son was seventeen years old, he made an attempt on David's life. In a fit of rage, David killed him. And stood there, in shock, over the body of his son. After that, David went into a cycle of addiction, swearing off sin for months or even years at a time before indulging again. He lasted this way for almost a century and a half, alternately raging at his situation and accepting his duty of leadership over the city. His situation was impossible, but his own personal strength wouldn't allow him to give up; he killed every son he had in order to make sure that he would stay Magistrate, that someone who at least understood good and evil would stay in that role. Finally, the Magistrate succeeded in his 'detox', so to speak. He shut himself up in his tower for nearly two decades and never so much as touched a woman, drank a drop of alcohol, took a single drug. In those two centuries, he had time for deliberation on himself and his situation, and he emerged with an idea. An idea to fight for total control of the city, and shrug off the Hierarchy. The Hierarchy And now, The Hierarchy. The Hierarchy is an organization of demons, hodgepodge, discontent with the worlds and their lot in life. They united under Moloch, one of the oldest and most powerful demons in all of existence. One scary motherfucker. Moloch decided to take over everything, slowly, and he began with Bete Noire. As each Magistrate died, and each new Magistrate was given the title, the Hierarchy was there. They corrupted the ritual, slowly at first, and then, finally, gained enough power that they were the ones fueling the Magistrate, not just the city anymore. The Magistrate would depend on them for his magical protection. And finally, hopefully, Moloch himself would be able to take the position. Of course, the fact that David stayed Magistrate so long meant that they had no opportunity to expand their power. They were stuck. The Game Begins Now, the Magistrate emerged from his long dark teatime of the soul and decided that he was going to try and fix the City of Sin. He was going to make reforms, lessen the impact of crimes, make people happier, because any good he did here would be magnified so much in the multiverse. The Magistrate made a post, asking for people to help form a police department. This is November 7, 2009, and marks the opening date of Bete Noire. At this point, the Magistrate is a genuinely good person. His intentions are completely good, he’s willing to examine his motives and correct his actions if necessary and wants to go all-out to convince people he’s doing good. Unfortunately, he’s not very experienced at this ‘being a good person’ thing, and his temper tends to get in his way, and he sometimes forgets that people aren’t as knowledgeable as him. Werewolves The Magistrate tries to keep the reforms relatively secret, but the Hierarchy catches wind of what he’s doing. The fact that the Magistrate is going out on his own is bad enough, but the fact that he’s doing things against the Hierarchy’s plan is much, much worse. They send a pack of werewolves to terrorize the city, and blow up the Tower, figuring that’ll be lesson learned and the end of it. Unfortunately for them, it isn’t. The Flood The Magistrate gets frustrated by his lack of progress and the people in the city failing to trust him. In desperation, he prays to God, trying to get some help in his mission, which he honestly believes is important enough to justify it. This backfires really fucking hard, and instead of help like he’s expecting, God sends a massive flood. The Hierarchy figures this is the last straw, okay, c’mon. They show up, clear away the water and repair the buildings, and decide to take tougher control over the city. In order to do this, they take human hosts from worlds strongly connected with the city, figuring that said humans will help prevent reprisals against the Hierarchy. The Hierarchy arrives And here we have The Hierarchy's representatives. First, the leader, Ginny Weasley (Harry Potter). She is placed into the bureaucracy. She’s the oldest of the Hierarchy demons, but oddly naïve, regardless. She never had anyone show any real affection for her, and the fact that Percy did was unexpected, and lovely. She genuinely liked him. Next, Kaylee Frye (Firefly). Kaylee believed she should be the leader, but wasn’t, and that denial expressed itself in violence. She got herself in trouble quickly, and was subsequently fired. Annie Cartwright (Life on Mars) was a fairly solid demon, good at what she does, not all that exceptional. Eli Wallace (Stargate: Universe) was a brilliant demon, a little bit of a slacker, but a smart cookie nonetheless. And, finally, Jim Gordon (DCU) was given mostly free rein; all his Hierarchy demon did was just nudge his mind, every once in a while, preventing him from figuring out who it was he was really working for. Thus, Jim Gordon honestly believed he was Jim Gordon, and acted that way. Annie Cartwright's demon was eventually ousted by Annie herself, who mustered the strength to take back control of her own body. Similarly, Eli’s demon left (possibly because of something shiny beside the road or something) and then the real interesting rep entered onto the scene. Chloe Armstrong The demon in Chloe Armstrong (Stargate: Universe)’s body was a backup demon. She was only called in because of her host’s origin universe; she hadn’t intended to go to Bete Noire at all. As such, she had a markedly different approach from the other demons. But that wasn’t all. Chloe Armstrong was pulled from a near-drowning, in her universe, several years before her entrance into the game. She remembers swimming up from a tank of water, where she’d been imprisoned at the time by aliens (SGU – 1.11 “Space”) and breaking the surface in the harbor in Bete Noire. As a helpless new arrival, Chloe was taken in by an order of nuns called the Sisters of the Resurrection. These sisters took it upon themselves to find girls like Chloe, in the City of Sin, and teach them what they viewed as the one necessary skill for survival: ruthlessness. The girls were mistreated and beaten, and, as a graduation ceremony, required to take a knife and kill a helpless, bound prisoner, usually a drifter. The Sisters dumped the bodies in a lake of old industrial sludge by the abandoned factories. Yes, these nuns were literally only conceived as a plot device for Chloe’s backstory, in order to make her traumatized and a bad person. After this, Chloe left the city, and journeyed, eventually meeting up with an as yet unnamed third party, where (as demonstrated by her skills in fighting and sneaking) she trained as a covert agent. Sometime during this sojourn, she decided to take more personal power, and purposefully summoned a demon and called it into herself, believing that she would be strong enough to dominate it. She was wrong. About a week later, she was called into Bete Noire to replace Eli Wallace’s demon. Chloe’s often erratic actions, wavering between loyalty to the Hierarchy, hatred and affection for the Stargate cast, and random inexplicable outbursts were a result of a base conflict within her body. Neither she nor the demon could maintain full control, but neither of them were willing to admit that to anyone, so they just continued fighting, each of them hoping that they could eventually win. The Icon of Illyria The majority of the plot that happened next was driven by Chloe. Not the demon inside her, but Chloe herself. First, Chloe convinced the Hierarchy that it was best to seek out the Icon of Illyria, the most powerful object in the city. It had once been one of three weapons wielded by a goddess named Illyria, who had achieved total domination of one dimension of reality, but the goddess had been long gone and somehow one of the weapons ended up in Bete Noire. Chloe, on the other hand, was a member of this shadow organization, and her mission was to start a war between Yellow Springs and Bete Noire, hopefully ending in the destruction of the power center for one or both of the two cities. She connected the Icon of Illyria with a curse that would alert the leader of the City of Death, when it was found, and made an announcement of rewards to anyone who could locate the icon. No one managed to find the Icon, but the Sisters of the Resurrection were curious about the actions of their former pupil, and sought it out themselves. They found it buried in Bete Noire’s graveyard and dug it up. As soon as they touched it, the curse was activated. A pulse of energy shook the city, and it broke the icon into pieces, giving perhaps hundreds of people a little mysterious bladed weapon. Noah Noah, the king of Yellow Springs, the City of Death, sensed this, and he took action. So. Noah. Noah’s the dude from the Bible, you know, God told him there was a flood coming and to get his boat on, and Noah built the boat, saved humanity, etc. But, seeing that, seeing the utter devastation wreaked on the world – it affected him. He got a kind of religious Stockholm Syndrome, and decided that sin was evil, and deserved to be wiped out. Projecting God’s actions onto a canvass of right and wrong, and making sure that God defaulted to ‘right’. He hates the City of Sin, has long suspected the Hierarchy of having bad intentions towards him, and has, for years now, been hearing rumors of an impending invasion from the Hierarchy. He’s pissed, and he seizes the opportunity to send the power of Death into the City of Sin. (Of course, the simple fact is that the Hierarchy was planning an invasion into Yellow Springs. They weren’t planning one so soon, but the rumors had such weight because they were based in fact. Indeed, the Hierarchy was hoping to use the citizens of Bete Noire as an army; this is why they seized the chance, after a brief alien invasion of the city, to train up as many people as possible.) The Knives' Curse The knives, when they stab someone, transfer this curse. They drag someone into Death, at the same time as the City of Sin tries to hold onto them. Thus, they enter an in-between state, not dead or alive, on the brink of Death and Sin. That was the first set of zombie events. Chloe's execution Finally, Chloe revealed herself to the wrong person, he told the Hierarchy that she was a spy, and she was executed as someone who worked for Yellow Springs, taking the secret of her true allegiance to the grave with her. The Magistrate's plan The Magistrate, meanwhile, hatches a plan. He doesn’t believe he’ll ever be truly rid of the Hierarchy as long as they have their grips in the Magistrate’s power. So he decides that if he can find his eldest daughter and transfer power to her, then it could be a clean transfer, not according to the old rituals, and she could rule the city free of their influence. So he decides to get some people to leave Bete Noire on the day when the city is weakest – July 1st – and go get her. The spread of the ritual At the same time, the mysterious organization responsible for Chloe and for rumor-mongering in Yellow Springs about a possible Hierarchy invasion takes action again. They leave a piece of paper with the ritual for leaving Bete Noire on the coffee shop table of a certain young underground advertising specialist named Bailey. The specialist realizes that this is a possible gold mine for people who want to GTFO, and she starts marketing like crazy. By the time July 1st rolls around, tons of people have this ritual. They execute it, simultaneously, and in seven places, the fabric of Bete Noire is worn just thin enough. Invasion And then Yellow Springs breaks through. Noah wants the Hierarchy’s heads. He wants Benny’s head, since he blames him for original sin and therefore for the flood. And he does everything he can to make that happen. The city resists, but eventually gives up Benny, and then uses the Hierarchy to bait a trap for Noah. Noah falls for it, but the instant he realizes it’s a trap, he tells his warriors to kill Benny. The city reels in shock from Benny’s death, and an earthquake engulfs the final battle. The Magistrate manages to kill Noah, Noah slaughters Jim Gordon and stabs Ginny Weasley, and, at the very end, the Magistrate has a heroic death just as his daughter arrives. A tearful moment of reconciliation, and he gives her the city. We leave Plot Arc 1 with the old Magistrate dead, and his daughter brought in as the new Magistrate of Bete Noire, free of the Hierarchy; with Noah’s death, the power of Yellow Springs is broken, and death has simply halted, everywhere in the multiverse. Finally, Bete Noire is in shambles, ruins, most of the buildings just rubble and great sinkholes open in the streets. And now we enter Plot Arc 2. Any questions, clarifications about metaplot arc 1, address them to this post. Metaplot Arc 2 (July 2010 - January 2011) Conquest, war, famine, death The invasion left the city in ruins. Food was scarce, looting everywhere, and it was days before most of the bodies were cleared from the streets. By the time a couple of weeks had passed, the inhabitants of Bete Noire realized what had happened to death, though it wasn't at all clear what the consequences would be yet. And the sun was as black as sackcloth The city experienced a solar eclipse. And the moon red as blood Shortly followed by a lunar eclipse. Proceeding this event, the city's werewolves felt strangely anxious, but the eclipse was uneventful. And the stars fell from the sky Thousands of shooting stars -- not a meteor shower, but stars literally falling from the sky, leaving it blacker than before. Every falling star granted a wish to someone below, throwing the city into utter chaos. During this time, God descended and spoke to a select group of people, warning them that things were going to get very bad very soon, but that it would be better eventually. She hinted that the only way to fix death was to destroy the root of the power of life, in the city of Babylon. Those in the city began to realize that recent events strongly resembled the Book of Revelations from the Bible. It seemed Apocalypse was on the way. On the way to Babylon Chloe re-awakens Chloe Armstrong woke up in her grave, seemingly revived from the dead. She was disoriented and confused, but indicated that she knew the way to Babylon. She then disappeared, and has not been heard from since. An attempt to revive Noah The Angel of Death appeared in the city soon after Chloe's disappearance. She demanded to know what had been done to death, and reached a deal with Tyki Mikk and Theriot LeBlanc to attempt and revive Noah. The theory was that, since Noah was the power source for Yellow Springs, his revival may mean repairing death and correcting the off-balance multiverse. LeBlanc arranged a party, with plenty of people attending. The plan was for the Angel of Death to funnel power from those people into LeBlanc, as he tried to bring Noah back from the dead. The spell took hold; unfortunately, what it summoned was not Noah, but instead Satan. Satan was jovial and cheerful, but he told the partygoers in no uncertain terms that Noah was under his domain, and he would not release him under any circumstances. He then warned all of them not to go to Babylon, or they would regret it, and he disappeared. The Angel of Death, cont'd The Angel of Death, angered at the ineffectiveness of the plan to revive Noah, decided to take matters in her own hands. She began ripping souls from the bodies of those who should have died but yet lived. This did not have the intended effect; she turned several members of the city into ghosts, but did not manage to actually restore the balance and make death work again. The Angel of Death was disabled when Lazarus created a homemade version of the Sorcerer's Stone and traded it to Satan for his help in stopping her. Satan made her into a human, nulling her angelic powers. A Trip to Babylon Meanwhile, a small group contacted Chloe Armstrong and asked her to be their guide to Babylon. She agreed, and they went on a sea journey for several days to an island with a volcano on it. The journey was briefly interrupted by demons of the Hierarchy and by a kraken, but they arrived safe and relatively intact. Once on the island, Chloe led them up the volcano to a fissure with lava flowing down below. She told them that in order to get to Babylon, they would have to take a leap of faith. After some arguing, they all did, and they arrived in Babylon. Nimrod, the king of Babylon, greeted them with a crossbow bolt; soon after this, Chloe felt a pain in her chest and was incapacitated. Nimrod told her that the pain was because she was in the process of becoming an angel, and she could either choose humanity or reject it. Chloe rejected it, and disappeared, apparently ascending to angelic status. Nimrod proved unhelpful to the group, not giving them any answers on how to fix death. He merely told them this: that the Tower of Babel held an artifact of great power, the Sword of War, and that if they wanted to get anything done, they should retrieve it. Unfortunately, the group fell to internal conflict, beset by the Curse of Babel, and killed one another before the sword could be retrieved. Volcano A volcano rises A volcano rose from the harbor, during an earthquake. Meanwhile, other signs of the Apocalypse started appearing, such as water spontaneously turning to blood. Persephone Persephone, apparently the wife of Satan, appeared one day on top of the volcano. She was obviously unstable, and had used the Sorcerer's Stone to escape Hell, despite it being winter. She spoke to many, but did not give out much clear information, besides claiming she could see the hand of God on many people's heads. She also mentioned that the volcano was a doorway to Babylon. Visions Many members of the city had visions. Of Hell, of cake, of Satan crying, kneeling in front of God. Satan appeared, during talk of these visions, and questioned those who'd had them. He seemed shaken by the news that he would cry. He claimed that he didn't have tear ducts, that crying was too human for something like him. Eruption On December 14th, 2010, the volcano erupted. Babylon The Mission Two different groups used the volcano's lava to go to Babylon. Their plan was to climb the Tower of Babel, retrieve the Sword of War and use it to kill Nimrod, thus restoring the balance of life and death. The Result Many people died on the way up to the top of the Tower. The few that survived managed to work together to lift the sword from the dais -- but before they could do so, they were interrupted by an angel. An angel who claimed to be none less than the archangel Michael. Immediately, Satan swooped in and fought Michael, to keep him away from the Sword and those wielding it. (Satan's goal was clearly to have Nimrod dead; Michael claimed that killing Nimrod would put the universe on the path to destruction.) Tony Stark managed to get the sword away and run Nimrod through. Babylon immediately collapsed, and all those who climbed the Tower were returned to Bete Noire. During these events, Nimrod implied that the one responsible for the coming Apocalypse might be none other than God Herself. He suggested that perhaps God wanted to wipe out her universe and start fresh with a new one. He had no proof to back up this possibility. Hell The Mission Another group, different from the ones going to Babylon, decided that they were not going to follow what the often-enigmatic NPCs implied they should do. Instead of trying to kill Nimrod, they contacted Persephone and asked her to take them to Hell, where they hoped to find Noah and bring him back to life, restoring the balance in another way. The Result Satan caught the group, and scattered them into various torments of Hell. The group managed to escape their torments, with the help of the strange, impish October. They found Noah, and asked him to come with them, but he refused. He told them that God had abandoned him, and, in return, he would abandon the universe that God created. The group left, in disappointment. They made their way past Hell's gatekeeper, Malek, and back to Bete Noire, but not before October told them about a Plan. October's Plan October confessed that she belonged to the same organization as Chloe Armstrong - the Order of the Fallen. This organization was made up of assassins, and founded by the Fallen Angel herself, Liandra. The eventual goal of this organization was the murder of God, presumably to protect the multiverse from destruction. On this note, Arc 2 of the metaplot concluded. Metaplot Arc 3 (January 2011 - present) The latest arc of the metaplot began with the city enjoying a hint of calm after the tumult of the Curse of Babel. Things missing, things lost After a plague that swept the city, Bete Noire was visited by numerous angels and demons. They patrolled the skies, ghosted along the streets, hardly ever speaking to humans. Michael stepped in, briefly; Satan did as well. Margaret and Eve's Souls Then, one day, during a public broadcast, the Magistrate (Margaret David) collapsed. On investigation, it was found that she and Eve both had their souls removed. Two teams were formed to recover the souls. Eve's was found behind a magical wall, in a beautiful garden. Her soul was apparently split in two, and placed in two apples -- one gold and one silver. Her soul was recovered successfully. The Magistrate was not so lucky. Her soul was in an eerie house, deep under the lake. Due to the sabotage of one of the participants in the quest, her soul was destroyed before it could be returned to her. Who's the Magistrate? To everyone's surprise, destroying the Magistrate's soul did not make the multiverse collapse. The specific results are still somewhat of a mystery. Intrusions After this, the city's energy was weakened. As a result of this, supernatural creatures of a more inhuman bent were able to wander into the city. This included sirens, mermaids, dragons and unicorns, among others. A New Magistrate After a prison break and the detonation of an EMP, a brutal famine plagued the city. For weeks, nothing entered or left the city. Survival was a matter of magic, of food conservation and duplication. A great many people died in the famine. Eventually, a group of PCs figured out that bringing down the barrier was a matter of combining scientific and magical remedies. They brought down the barrier and the new Magistrate arrived. Uproar Glory was a disappointment from the very beginning. She was afraid of her new position and unwilling to admit that she needed help. Quickly, she fell into bad habits of alcohol and drugs, habits that she'd formed long before being in this city. Paranoid about the city favorites usurping her power, she began an investigation into the police department (after changing its name to the Sheriff's Department in honor of Raylan Givens' hat). She also had the police conduct a raid on the Hellsing Organization. As a result, an upstart group called Uproar began to publicly decry the Magistrate's position. Uproar began demonstrations, including one night where a fireworks display started a fire in the Jungle. Various NPCs were killed and wounded. Church of the Soul Meanwhile, other tensions in the city continued to brew. Humans and non-humans began settling into lines of conflict. Humans blamed the city's problems on the actions of the supernaturals, the mutants and the aliens among them. Non-humans lashed back. The situation slowly escalated on either side, due to the actions and the reactions of Various NPCs. A young woman named Clara formed an organization called the Church of the Soul to solidify and strengthen pro-human sentiment. The Church provided victim support, soup kitchens, community outreach and an orphanage for children whose parents were killed by supernatural attacks. Unfortunately, despite the lack of an overt violent message, members of the Church were often implicated in anti-supernatural attacks. In contrast, non-humans have been allying under the banner of Agatha, a fortune-teller beaten into a coma by a human attack. The situation is careening towards outright war, and no one has yet managed to stop it.